Business of the House

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

There are many, many funds. The hon. Gentleman is saying that they are all corrupt. They are all available to view on gov.uk, and you can see where funding has gone.

I would also say to the hon. Gentleman that these bids are not assessed by Ministers; they are assessed independently. They are scored and it is transparent. Good feedback will be given to those who did not progress in this round. Quite often, what happens is that bids that are not successful in one round are successful in successive rounds, because those areas that needed improvement have been done.

Finally, I would say to the hon. Gentleman, because of the way in which he has put his question, that he has slight form in accusing people of doing things that on investigation they have turned out not to have been done. It was very recently that he accused one of my colleagues of manhandling somebody who turned out not to have been handled at all. I would just urge a little caution in how the hon. Gentleman makes such accusations.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

We have just had an urgent question on levelling up: an urgent question that was necessary only because the Government were too ashamed to come forward with a statement. Some of the successful bids for funding—amounting to about a third of what Scotland would have received from EU funding, I should say—were quite astonishing. Areas such as Renfrewshire, which has Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow, on its doorstep, missed out on any funding. That comes just after it missed out on a green freeport to a much wealthier area. Can we have a debate on redistribution, levelling up and pork-barrel politics, and particularly on the criteria applied to levelling up?

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Gentleman will know the tax dividend that is there for Scotland: over £2,000 more is spent per head in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK. As I say, there are a number of live funds to which constituencies and local authorities in Scotland can apply. Just from the levelling-up fund, Scotland has had £349 million. If the hon. Gentleman has been unsuccessful in a bid, I am sorry to hear that, but the Department will work with him and his local authority to improve the bid, and hopefully it will be successful in subsequent rounds.